Apartment City

RIO DE JANEIRO ― Seven years ago, Vila Autódromo was little more than a tranquil fishing village on the edge of Jacarepagua Lagoon, next to the racetrack for which it was named. Like the hundreds of other favelas that dot Rio de Janeiro ’s landscape, it had long been neglected by the city government , and it lacked many basic public services that are standard in the fast- growing wealthier neighborhoods just across the water. But to the more than 600 families that lived there, it was home. “This was a paradise,” said Luiz Cláudio Silva, who lived in Autódromo for more than 20 years. “I thought that I would live here for the rest of my life.” By the time the Rio Olympics are over, just 20 of the families who lived in Autódromo in 2009, the year the International Olympic Committee chose the city to host the games, will remain. The community, which sits less than a mile away from Rio’s Olympic Park, was crushed so that the city could build new access roads to connect Olympic venues . ...

How the fight against displacement calls for New York City’s Asian immigrant communities to defect from the “ model minority ” narrative. Media Gallery When NYU sophomore Sam Kim attended a rally outside Manhattan’s City Hall in March, he didn’t think that he would be ushered into the spotlight. Kim had learned of the rally through the local housing organization CAAAV (Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence), which called on New Yorkers to oppose President Trump ’s proposed $6.2 billion cut to the 2018 budget of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This cut would dramatically reduce federal funding for New York City public housing , which currently provides rent-subsidized homes to 600,000 New Yorkers. Along the City Hall steps , Kim and two fellow student organizers joined a rare gathering of tenants from otherwise disparate peripheries of the city. Asian immigrants from Chinatown and Queens stood alongside Black and Latino residents of Brooklyn and the Bronx...

SEOUL, South Korea — Once or twice a year, activity on the streets of South Korea’s capital freezes as a wailing siren marks a nationwide drill aimed at preparing against a North Korean attack . Cars stop on roads. Pedestrians move into buildings and subway stations. Government buildings are evacuated. The scenes during the latest air-raid drill on Wednesday are remarkable for turning parts of this usually bustling city into a ghost town. But a closer look raises questions about whether the exercises are adequately preparing South Koreans while the threat from North Korea’s nuclear and missile program grows . For many, there’s no real training, just people standing around in schoolyards or other gathering spots, staring into their smartphones, chatting amiably or just looking bored or frustrated. Many schools don’t participate in the air-raid drills and those that do often escort children outside. Leaving their buildings would be a good idea during earthquakes, but a terrible deci...

On the morning that Alfonso Maldonado Silva was set to argue his first case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, Ca., he was too nervous to even drink a glass of juice for breakfast. So he decided to head to court early to review the case one last time. He said a short prayer asking for wisdom, then he showered, dressed in a neatly pressed gray suit , and on an overcast morning last April, headed out the door with his evidence binder in hand. He had been up since 5 a.m. Maldonado, a third- year law student at Western State College of Law in Orange County, had left nothing to chance. This would be his first time arguing a case in court before any judge. So he had arrived the night before to stay in a Pasadena hotel to avoid the clogged commute from his Corona apartment during rush-hour. The only thing on the 28-year-old’s mind was the law. Much was riding on this case. Maldonado and his fellow law student , Cristel Martinez Medina , were representing an undocumente...